Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings
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About Word Documents


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Some of the sermons and longer articles from Fire and Ice are available for download as Word for Windows documents(.doc files). This page is to answer some common questions about these files.

Why Word for Windows format? Word for Windows is probably the most common word processor used today, therefore sermons in that format are the easy to print and read.
I don't know about you, but I find it hard to read sermons on a computer screen. Holding them in my hands on paper is much better, and having my Bible at hand is even better yet. Also it is much easier to share copies with friends who don't have a computer!

What if I have a Mac?

I am told that Word for the Mac can read Word for Windows files.

Why are they zipped?

The files are in Zip format (.zip, PKZip) so they take up less space on the server.

How do I "unzip" them?

You can use a file manager such as Norton File Manager, or a shareware utility such as WinZip by Niko Mak. These utilities are fairly easy to find on CompuServe or on AOL. WinZip has its own Web page at http://www.winzip.com. I am told that Stuffit (for Macs) works just fine, too.

What's all this I read about incompatible Word file formats? How can I tell if I will be able to read the documents I download?

This is a complicated situation. At the moment there are 3 Word for Windows file formats in common use: Word 2.0 (from 1992), Word 6.0/7.0 (for Windows 3.1/95) and now Word 97. All the documents on Fire and Ice are in 6.0/7.0 format.
This means that if you have Word 6, 7, or 97 you can open and read the Word files. If you are using Word 2.0, you need to download a free viewer utility from Microsoft (see below.) You can also use Wordpad for Windows 95 (see below.)

What if I don't have Word for Windows?

You can download a Word for Windows 97 viewer utility from Microsoft at http://microsoft.com/msword/internet/viewer/. Even though it is a Word 97 viewer, it works for all Word formats. This viewer will let you read, print, resize, and zoom the any of the WinWord docs on this site. The only thing you cannot do is edit them.
This viewer is available for both Windows 3.1 (16 bit)and Windows 95 (32 bit).
Also, the WordPad utility that comes with Windows 95 will open Word documents.

But I heard about Word macro viruses.

It is true that recently (since the end of 1996) there have been a proliferation of Word macro viruses. While the only sure prevention is a commercial antivirus program, it is a wise precaution to download Word documents only from people you know and trust (like Fire and Ice). You may be sure that none of the files here are infected. For more information on Word macro viruses, how to protect yourself and how to deal with them, see the following articles at the Microsoft Web site: www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/Q134/7/27.htm and www.microsoft.com/MSWordSupport/content/usage/macrovirus/.

Why should I use these downloads?

Because having the ink on paper is the next best thing to being there.

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About PDF (Acrobat) documents


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